'What are you people fucking doing to me?' the man had demanded. 'Don't you know I've killed people?'
Mercy had told Jill that the question had surprised her. She'd been working with this man so he knew very well that she was aware he had killed people.
He'd continued, 'I've been fucking laughing over there!', pointing to the veranda behind them. 'If I let my guard down like that, who knows what the fuck I'll do next? I've killed people – if you try to get me to start feeling again, what if I can't control that part of me?'
Although Jill had understood the man's dilemma when Mercy had first related the story, its meaning was deeper for her now. Her life had so long been lived in absolutes that she was not sure she could tolerate the shades of grey that other people seemed to accept. The one glass of liquor last night would be just that to anyone else, but for Jill it could mean that she'd just taken her first step into the alcoholic spiral she had lived through for a year in her adolescence. It had always been all or nothing for her.
She got out of bed, the cramp in her neck finally demanding a stretch. She picked her tissue box up from the nightstand and walked with it to her loungeroom, slipping between the blinds and sliding the balcony door open a crack. She couldn't smell the surf through her blocked nose, but the sea breeze slapped her in the face. She took a few deep gulps of the cool morning air.
It wasn't just the alcohol. Other rituals were blurring, too. The exercise, for one. It was now every second day. Was that enough? Could she still fight for her life? Did she still need to? And then there was Gabriel. A week, she'd known him, and last night she had been drinking at his house. If someone had told her a week ago the way she would spend last night, she'd have laughed in their face.
She made up her mind. Despite this head cold, she couldn't spend the whole day inside feeling miserable. She needed some groceries and she wasn't going to let the day go by without some form of exercise. She quickly showered and dressed in leggings and a long-sleeved tee-shirt.
The Maroubra shopping centre was an easy three-kilometre walk. Jill wasn't going to do easy. No way she'd allow herself to get weak, she decided. She'd go to Eastgardens at Pagewood, and she'd take the long route, via Matraville.
When her feet hit the pavement outside her unit block, she started to run. Habit. At first, her lungs burned with the effort, and her feet felt heavy, but by the time she got to Beauchamp Road, she had found her rhythm and zoned out the pain.
Her thoughts turned again to the case. She considered the answers she wanted to get out of Joss Preston-Jones and Isobel Rymill tomorrow. The time had come for them to stop screwing around. In full flight at the Anzac Parade intersection at South Maroubra, she didn't bother to stop at the lights. Dodging through the traffic, it suddenly occurred to her that Joss and his wife could be in danger. She hit the pavement on the other side of the intersection. If Joss had recognised Cutter wearing a balaclava, surely it was possible, even probable, that Cutter had recognised him.
She thought about what she told most victims who were worried about offenders coming back to find them after they'd been robbed or attacked. The adrenalin rush the criminal experienced during the act of crime typically diminished their memory for incidental details of the crime scene. These incidental details included the features of their victims. She'd seen survivors sell their homes within weeks, quit their jobs, leave the state, even their families, afraid that the offenders would return and attack again, certain they were still on a hit list. When she spoke to the perps, however, Jill noticed that most of them wouldn't have a clue that their targets were still petrified that they'd be back. Most of the time, Jill's words didn't comfort the victims. Hell, her behaviour over the last twenty years indicated that she didn't believe them herself.
And the stakes were higher in this case. Cutter and his crew had committed murder. There were witnesses. If they believed that those witnesses could send them to gaol, they might try to return and take them out.
Heading downhill now, Jill ramped up the pace and felt her drug of choice – endorphins – kick in. She considered whether telling the couple about this risk might convince them to open up to her. She had no real evidence of a threat to their safety – in fact, she decided, the events so far would indicate otherwise. The offenders had done nothing to harm Joss at the time of the home invasion. Surely if he'd recognised Joss, Henry Nguyen would have taken him out that night? Jill knew that during robberies, mass murder would sometimes take place when the armed robber had gone too far and accidentally killed someone at the scene. Realising that the consequences of being caught were now far worse, sometimes the perps went postal and took out all of the witnesses.
After the five-kilometre run, she automatically took her pulse out the front of the sprawling Eastgardens shopping complex. A little higher than usual. She waited outside the huge glass doors for a moment, letting her heartbeat slow. She detested crowds, and she knew that she didn't need any extra stimulation when she entered the centre.
It seemed as though the spring weather had created a nesting frenzy. It looked like people had come from all over Sydney today to purchase their summer fashions, new cushions or a barbecue. She knew from her mother that around this time of year people started to think about a new lounge suite or plasma TV to impress their Christmas visitors. Hell, Jill thought, as she looked around her, some of these people would probably have their Christmas present lists on them. In October! Jill usually bought her presents on the twenty-third of December. She had promised herself she would use the internet to do her Christmas shopping this year, but she guessed she probably wouldn't get around to it.
Breathing normally again, she followed a twenty-something couple in through the doors. They held hands, but the woman was a step ahead of her man, her face shining, entering her Sunday house of worship.
Jill just needed some fresh vegies. She'd get fish, milk and coffee locally, but the vegetables were better in the larger centres. Music poured out of a huge boutique to her left and she paused. She really liked this song. The mannequins in the window angled bony hips and arrogant eyes down at her. Summer dresses. Full, floaty fabrics held onto bare shoulders by impossibly thin shoestring straps. Jill couldn't imagine herself wearing something that offered so little protection from the outside world. The jewelled colours conjured images of cocktails by the pool, tropical birds, sunsets and balmy evening Christmas parties. A world Jill wasn't part of. She knew there were others in the community also barred entry to this world, who malevolently resented its inhabitants. Isolated, violent males, who took this rejection personally, plotted revenge against girls who wore dresses like these. 'Paint it Black', the Rolling Stones song, came to her mind – for some people the bright summer clothes brought forward their darkest fantasies.
The opening notes of another track that Jill liked came from the boutique's sound system. She stepped inside and immediately regretted it. She usually purchased her clothing from Myer or David Jones a couple of times a year, shopping in the middle of the week to avoid the crowds. She felt safe in the spacious, quiet department stores. A salesgirl buzzed straight over to her, shining and glossy, almost fizzing with energy. Jill felt snotty and dull in comparison.
'Good morning! Are you having a good day so far?'
The girl was a riot of belts and bangles, piercings and hair fudge. She probably wouldn't sit her Higher School Certificate until next year or the year afterwards. Jill was awed by such confidence in someone so new.
Just looking, thanks, was her automatic response to salespeople, but for some reason she decided to try something on. Maybe it was the music. Or the braces on the girl's teeth, worn like jewellery. Jill admired her self-confidence. And maybe she needed some new clothes.
Forty minutes later, Jill finally made her way to the greengrocers.
She took a different route home, down Maroubra Road and past the police station. She wondered who was in there today and what she would have been working on over the past week had she stayed there. T
he thought made her think about the movie Sliding Doors. If she'd worked at Maroubra as usual over the past six days, she would never have met Gabriel. She had already learned so much from him, and the thought gratified her. Despite her discomfort around him – the ridiculous discomfort of being comfortable – she looked forward to working the rest of the case with him. She resolved again to ask him more about assignments he'd worked in the past and how he'd come to be seconded to the taskforce.
The case had become all about Cutter, she realised, as she ran downhill towards the sea. The brutality of the crimes had led them naturally to focus upon the one man depicted by all the witnesses as the gang leader and the most violent. Trying to find him was their main priority. She wondered whether that was limiting their scope. She knew that the detectives who'd worked the cases before the establishment of the taskforce had looked pretty hard at trying to identify other members of the crew. They had one other name at least, Mouse. In the interview with Joss and Isobel tomorrow, she would focus at least some questions on trying to learn more about these other people.
She rifled mentally through other cases, trying to glean something from them that could help with this one. In her experience, home invasions were usually one-off events committed by somebody who knew the occupants of the house and that something of value was kept at that residence. Sometimes, it was a member of the victim's community who'd learned that the homeowner had a safe in which they kept cash from their business, or jewellery they'd inherited. At other times, a punter who'd come good and shouted the wrong person at the local would find their winnings gone by daybreak, often while they slept the night off. And plenty of Harley-Davidson riders had woken to a gun to their head and a demand for their keys in the middle of the night. Jill remembered one incident where the owner had refused, and had been gutshot by a bikie in his living room in front of his wife and kids.
These robberies were different. They appeared to be organised along some other lines. The stolen items of value were typical of any burglary, but there didn't seem to be any other obvious link between the hits. She knew that the previous detectives had investigated any tradies that the victims might have had in common – a plumber or an electrician who might have visited all of the residences and used the chance to scope the house for security and valuables. They hadn't come up with a link. She wondered whether other professions had been considered – even an accountant, a kid's tutor or a gardener could have had a son or a boyfriend, a cousin or a brother who was a criminal and had used their connections to get to the next victim. She added another task to her list: ensuring that all service providers had been meticulously looked at for connections between the victims.
The final stretch home was uphill. Good. Jill imagined the sweat cleaning out the germs in her system. When she reached Maroubra Junction, she decided to stop for the last few items on her shopping list. She bought a chicken from a butcher's shop on Maroubra Road, and a sourdough loaf from the bakery. Walking the rest of the way home, carrying her latest purchases, she thought about the chicken soup she'd decided to make for lunch. Her mum would be proud.
Back in her unit, Jill piled the food onto the benchtop and then went into her bedroom to put her new clothes away. Her brow creased while hanging up the filmy tops and the sundress she had purchased. They looked nothing like the rest of her outfits. She scowled at them, and shut the wardrobe door. Maybe she would be wearing Scotty's pretty pendant soon! She stripped off her running gear and took a quick shower. Her nose had cleared a little, but she still felt stuffy; the scented steaminess of the warm water helped a lot.
In a soft tee-shirt, boxer shorts, and squashy socks, Jill returned to her kitchen to cook. She diced carrots, onion and celery, and sweated them in a little olive oil and salt in her biggest stockpot. She added boiling water, a couple of bay leaves and the chicken, looking forward to having the soup with a squeeze of lemon juice in a couple of hours. In the meantime, she cut a hunk of the bread and toasted it, then slathered it with strawberry jam. She took the toast and a pot of green tea out to the balcony.
She stared out to sea, her body humming from the exercise, and zoned out. Within a few moments, however, the case again came to mind. Whatever method the gang had used to target their victims, she thought, it was almost certain that most of them had not seen things going the way they had. In the first robberies, the violence, although terrifying, had mostly been used as a threat to compel compliance. Robbery had clearly been the motive. The motive for the leader now, though, was the violence itself, and if Gabriel was right, cracks in the group would be starting to form. She wondered whether there might be any way they could turn the screws a little more. Maybe put the hovering media to good use, to heighten the fear and paranoia among the group members – get them to turn on themselves. She'd put it to the taskforce tomorrow.
Jill felt the Vitamin D doing her good. She leaned her face into the sunshine and closed her eyes.
29
CHLOE FELT SWEAT at her hairline, but her heartbeat was slowing. God, the guy had scared the shit out of her when she came back around to the front of the basement room. And she had nothing against tattoos, but he was kind of scary-looking.
She debated entering the room. Maybe she should suggest they go up to the house? But she hadn't even met the owner. Would it be rude to just go barging into someone else's house? She couldn't suggest another place to interview him. It's not like she could invite him home for a cup of tea at her house in Seven Hills. And no one back at the network would even dream of giving a cadet an office.
She made up her mind. What could happen, she thought. It's a sunny afternoon in the suburbs and Maryana and her mother are just up the stairs.
Chloe followed Cutter into his bedroom.
When he entered the room behind her, she began to feel even more awkward. Wanting him to feel comfortable enough to open up and speak to her, she was acutely aware in the small room that she stood a head taller than him. She looked for somewhere to sit – there was only the bed. She perched on the very edge and got her notebook out of her bag. The door shut, and her head whipped up. The thud had been a heavy metallic sound – like a vault. Her heartbeat gathered pace again.
'We don't want people listening to us,' he said.
Chloe's eyes darted around the room. A thick curtain covered a small window in the whitewashed wall. It smelled funny in here.
'I'm already disturbed that my name would be mentioned in a criminal investigation,' he continued. 'I don't want Mrs Miceh imagining that I'm an unsavoury tenant. Do you know, if it wasn't for my grandma, I don't think she would even have leased this room to me in the first place.'
Chloe relaxed a little. She pictured the bent old woman in the doorway in Cabramatta, smilingly pushing a piece of fruit and this address into her hand.
'She is a sweetie,' said Chloe. 'How long have you been living here?'
'Just a week or so,' said Henry. 'It's all I can afford at the moment. I have a new job in sales, in the Hills district, so this suits me fine.'
'So, nobody from the police department has contacted you regarding this investigation?' Chloe asked, eager to begin the interview.
'No. But I can't say I'm surprised that they're looking at me.'
She gave him a questioning look.
'I got into trouble as a kid,' he explained. 'Break and enters, stealing. A criminal record is the worst thing, Ms Farrell. The police are very lazy. Crimes happen in a certain area – they go through their database and suddenly there's a cop at your door. It's hard to convince people that you've changed.'
Chloe made a few notes.
'And the tattoos don't help matters,' he said.
No kidding, thought Chloe. Ugh.
'When I was young, I lost my father and my grandfather in a very short period of time,' he said. 'I was particularly close to my grandfather. I think that's why I rebelled.'
Chloe jotted his comments, but wished that he would sit down. He seemed to be standing over her.
> 'But I've grown up now. I don't do silly little things like that anymore,' he said.
'The police are watching your family home in Cabramatta,' she said. 'Now you know that, what do you think you will do about it?' She readied herself to scribble down his response. 'Will you go to them and ask why they're intruding into your life this way?'
He looked down at her and smiled. Chloe decided that when he'd answered this question, she would stand after all. This whole situation creeped her out.
'No, I don't think so,' he answered. 'You might have gathered that I don't like the police, Ms Farrell. And I don't think they're going to find me out here. My grandmother won't be giving this address to anyone else.'
Chloe rubbed at her left eye. The tic always started when she felt anxious. She moved to stand.
The explosion of movement stunned her more than the blow to her face. Her vision darkened for just a moment, and then returned, orange. Her face was pressed into his bedspread.
'Slut! Stupid slut!'
Chloe bucked with her legs to throw him off, trying to bawl out a scream, but her mouth pressed into the orange fabric, and the scream wouldn't form. All of his weight was on top of her, but Chloe was strong, and she felt his body shifting sideways, sliding off her. Then she felt cold steel pressed into the left side of her neck. She recoiled, jerking her head to the right, and the knife followed, this time biting, deep. She felt warm blood well. She was going to die here. Terror paralysed her.
'That's right, slut. Don't move around, and maybe I won't hurt you.'
He kept the knife to her neck and raised himself off her body. She tried to move a little and he pressed the knife deeper. She stopped moving.
'Stand up now, slut,' he said.
The pressure of the knife forcing her to comply, Chloe stood at the side of the bed, whimpering quietly. She knew that her only hope for seeing her parents again lay in keeping this blade from slicing her throat. She knew now with whom she shared this room. How could she have been so stupid? Details of the murder in Capitol Hill came to her, threatening to unhinge her completely. Stop it, she told herself. She needed to stay sane. Do what he told her. She wasn't ready to die yet.
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